SAPELO ISLAND ― What constitutes a town square in Hog Hammock, the unofficial capital of this sparsely populated coastal Georgia island, can be a desolate place.
The welcome sign along the main road claims a population of 70, but residents say it’s closer to 40. And in the aftermath of the worst moment in Sapelo’s modern history — Saturday’s gangway collapse at a state-owned and operated ferry dock that killed seven visitors — the locals understandably were homebound.
No shoppers visited the Sapelo Go Country Store. No diners came or went from The Minnow Trap Bar & Grill. Both businesses were closed Monday and Tuesday. The island’s library opened Tuesday morning, but the librarian spent her time shelving materials, not interacting with neighbors who’d come to borrow books or share the latest community updates.
Next door, the playground stood empty. Two basketballs sat neglected on the blacktop court beyond.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
A gentle breeze carried the faint whisper of ocean waves crashing on Cabretta Beach about a half-mile to the east.
Hog Hammock is inhabited by the descendants of enslaved West Africans brought to the island generations ago. Known as Gullah Geechee, they live in simple homes set along sand and dirt roads, each of the residences fronted by inviting, screened-in porches.
Yet even these front stoops were barren, a rarity in such a tight-knit place.
The somber atmosphere reflected a community in mourning. Saturday’s fatalities involved a dock gangway collapse that pitched some 20 people, many of them elderly, into a swift-moving river. The tragedy came near the end of the island’s annual culture and heritage celebration, a joyous day for islanders and one that had been particularly gratifying given mounting threats to their simple, traditional lifestyle removed from outside influences.
Hog Hammock, the only privately owned land on an island that is 97% owned by the state, is at a watershed moment. The local government, McIntosh County, has enacted legislation that in effect opens this pristine paradise to tourism and as a vacation-home destination. The changes include revised development guidelines that allow for larger residences. Separately, a community center long neglected by the government was repurposed into an eatery.
Credit: Teake Zuidema
Credit: Teake Zuidema
The residents’ plight has attracted broad sympathy, and 700 visitors purchased tickets for Saturday’s festival, known as Cultural Day, in what one ticket-holder described as a show of solidarity and support. In an interview Sunday, one of the event’s organizers, Josiah “Jazz” Watts, called the turnout empowering, and made the dock collapse and the deaths all the more tragic.
By Monday afternoon, with the broken dock ramp removed and the initial wave of investigators and media members who’d been on scene largely gone, the people of Hog Hammock were left to process the horror alone.
Many experienced the tragedy firsthand, rushing to the boat landing to help with the rescue efforts. The strong swimmers went into the water to pull victims to shore. Others scrambled along the shell-and-mud beach as they moved the injured to the dock.
According to one of the rare locals out and about as dusk approached Monday, the trauma is the type best dealt with at home surrounded by loved ones.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
The solitude was broken around 7 p.m. Monday by the roar of an old school bus engine as the vehicle motored into the community. Like a signal, the arrival brought most every Hog Hammock resident to the headquarters of the Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization within minutes.
They listened to condolences offered by a group of state lawmakers, members of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. After the dignitaries climbed back onto the bus to return to the ferry dock and from there the mainland, residents huddled tightly in pairs and small groups to reflect on a day that “changed everything about” Sapelo.
“The day — the morning, the afternoon — had been perfect, beautiful,” said James Banks Jr., who grew up on Sapelo and moved back to the island when he retired from a career in education. “Then came the heartbreak.”
The few Hog Hammock residents who ventured out Tuesday shared troubled looks but not their troubling stories. Approached by a reporter, they politely but firmly declined to talk about their experiences and what they have felt in the accident’s aftermath.
Counselors and other mental health professionals are scheduled to visit Sapelo on Wednesday to help islanders deal with the lingering mental trauma.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
A traumatizing experience
The ferryboat dock, Marsh Landing, is a mile south of Hog Hammock, down a straight, narrow paved road named the Autobahn. The Cultural Day festival site, the Farmer’s Alliance Hall, is almost a mile in the opposite direction along another road, named Perimeter.
Cellphone service on Sapelo is spotty on a normal day with less than 100 people on the island. On festival day, the population had swollen with vendors, performers and family members of residents joining the 700 guests. Cell reception was so poor at the celebration’s height that Banks had stopped checking his phone.
By 4 p.m., the crowds had thinned as visitors began the long journey off the island — a bus ride to the boat dock followed by a wait for the ferry and finally the cruise to the mainland.
A few minutes later, a text got through to one of the local residents. There’s been an accident at the landing. People are in the water. Come help now.
Islanders piled into cars at the festival site and drove quickly to the landing. They arrived to find a nightmare. Their Hog Hammock neighbors — seemingly every able-bodied resident — who’d beaten them to the site already were engaged in rescue efforts. Those with emergency medical training, such as nurse Stephanie Grovner, administered CPR and other lifesaving measures.
Grovner’s fiance, Peter Campbell, wasn’t at the accident scene but has spent the time since comforting his bride-to-be. Even with her nursing background, Grovner was shaken by the experience, Campbell said.
“On the job, she expects to deal with trauma; it’s different when it happens like that, when you’re treating people on a shell beach and a concrete dock,” Campbell said. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Maurice Bailey, another island resident and rescuer, has EMT training and assisted with the most severely injured, including victims whose lives couldn’t be saved. He said he couldn’t recall details about the physical appearances of the men and women he worked on.
“I didn’t look at their faces,” he said. “I couldn’t.”
Banks, the retired educator, said the weight of what happened can be seen in the eyes, faces and body language of his neighbors.
“They aren’t sleeping because they can’t,” said Banks, who is struggling himself. He recalls talking to one of those who died, retired minister and law enforcement chaplain Charles L. Houston, earlier in the day at the festival.
“This is probably the first time ever Sapelo has seen seven deaths in one day,” he said. “Of all the things we’ve dealt with the last few years, this is the hardest.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
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